A Long Papyrus Bridge
Father
I like to read your letters
written on something like
what I use to roll around
a filter and loose leaf cut
of choice homegrown to
bacco before I set fire to one end and suck as a straw
and blow out of my nose, thick clouds of white smoke
but were they gray when Rome was burning?
I can remember you
saying something about
his mother and I can
remember you looking
into my soul
Father
did I know you?
before? because
you have built a
long papyrus
bridge that
stretches all the way out from your little Mediterranean island across a faithless Atlantic
and
a couple thousand years
and your ink mixes with the blood in my veins
what color does the combination of red and
black make? does it swirl as it would in a
syringe? because your words are the
wings of a dove and a black crow,
too and we caught them plotting
murder like a board-game of
Clue we know who tied the
noose and they put us
down dear father like
a lethal injection they
grind on those same veins that I mentioned before, they twist the same chest cavity that you once smoothed dear father and the 3:19 a.m. no longer feels ok because we are dining on our own ashes here - at least, I am - and you kept trying to tell us, you kept saying those same words over and over - you said, "Get it son. Catch this and run with it." in that voice so familiar it sounded like a neighbor
no,
better:
a savior
your ink cleanses the bloodstream
do you understand that father?
I pray to you
and I won't apologize for it
and
I'll pray to every saint in the library before I go back to the
church where they told me not to
